Follow up to WATERmeditation

with Rosemary B. Ganley      

“Taking the Long View”

Monday, November 4, 2024 at 7:30pm EST

Now that the U.S. elections are over, WATER is even more grateful for the wisdom and generosity of Rosemary B. Ganley in presenting “Taking the Long View” which was the theme of our Election Week meditation.

The video can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGq6faCW3XY

Rosemary is a writer, teacher, and activist in Peterborough, Ontario, who has a regular column in that community’s newspaper. She was an editor of the Catholic New Times, a progressive publication. Her activism knows no bounds. Last month she spent two weeks in Rome demonstrating, meeting people, and stirring up good trouble on issues related to women and other marginalized people at the Synod on Synodality. The Washington Post featured a picture of her with pro-women’s ordination folks with their soup cans protesting the Vatican’s tactic of kicking that can down the road. Next month she will be inducted into the Order of Canada, a high honor that recognizes her many contributions.

She invited us to reflect on three questions:

++ What will you continue to do in the days ahead, no matter the outcome?

++ What will you give up doing?

++ What might you undertake anew after the election?

These are spot on for this time and the unfolding global story of justice ahead of us.

Here are her remarks and several comments from participants’ reflections

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Taking the Long View

input by Rosemary B. Ganley

I am privileged at this fraught time to offer a few thoughts for meditation.

Reading the Signs of our times is our first responsibility. Seeing the world clearly in 2024 in the USA, for sincere and progressive people, is dark. Over 40% of fellow citizens have become cultic, in support of the Republican candidate, an evil man.

The righteous suffer. The iniquitous prosper. There is potential for violence. a strong man backed by oligarchs. Possible delay of results, deep election anxiety, Doom scrolling. Living in unprecedented time. Disgust for Trump supporters.

The other alternative for president is a decent person, who will inherit a fractured society. But this outcome, her election, is devoutly to be wished. We will feel joy and relief and a new awareness of what it takes to have a healthy society. It cannot have such inequality as at present. Very strenuous for our imaginations, holding two possible outcomes in our hearts. Much like waiting for a biopsy report to come back.

All of this anxiety, St Ignatius wrote, “is not coming from a good place.” We seek to recover that good place through our meditation.

Good practices

  1. Keeping calm and breathing deeply. The virtue of inner calm. Jesus speaks of fear in the gospels, 40 times; more often even than of love. It is always “Fear not”. “Perfect love drives out fear”.
  2. Remembering: the history of mystics, and ordinary people in hard times.

(a)  Julian of Norwich, 14th century Englishwoman, lived in a time of bubonic plague, 3 popes excommunicating each other, and the 100-year war between England and France;

She wrote: “He did not say you will not be perturbed; you shall not be troubled. He said “You shall not be overcome”.  She said, “All shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well”.

(b) We recall the 1940’s Bombing of Britain; nightly raids and rush to bomb shelters; rationing of food; news of casualties; loved ones, dying or missing.

(c) Present wars: a new word I learned at a rally Trent University students had. Life in Gaza today: “scholasticide”:  16 universities and colleges have been bombed into ruins, as if thought itself is targeted for erasure. Constant uprooting and fleeing, living in rubble, shortage of medical care, food and water. Gaza has the greatest number of child amputees in the world.

  1. Seeking connection. I’m spending election night at a pub in downtown Peterborough, Ontario with Democrats Abroad. Seeking companionship. Of course that depends on one’s personality. If you like to bear bad news alone; plan for the evening. Plan some activities and comfort food and music: maybe write the candidate a quick thank you; write Ms. Harris, either way.
  2. Silence. Rumi, the Arab poet, wrote; “Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pulse of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. In the silence, there is a sacred mystery, a path that shows you the way, not with words, but with the heart’s yearning”. Rumi

“One day I stopped, listened, and heard the most beautiful sound: my soul. Peace is all around us, and within us. Once we learn to touch this peace, we will be healed and transformed. It is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of practice”. Thich Nhat Hanh

  1. Reading. In the fifties, before the age of social media, my father said, “Those who get their news from newspapers are less anxious than those who get it on TV.” Choose what you are watching and reading carefully.

I like The Atlantic Monthly. In one issue, 27 reporters were designated to write something critical about Mr. Trump.

I also like On Consolation: Finding Solace in Dark Times by Canadian Michael Ignatieff which includes profiles of writers throughout history who were in extremity, and found consolation: Job, St Paul, Dante, the Psalms, Camus, Hume, Montaigne, Cecily Saunders.

For smiles, occasionally laughs, I watch Stephen Colbert and I read Michael Moore.

Dante said: “We are not born to be brutes; we are human beings created for knowledge and virtue”.


Prompts for meditation:

What will you continue to do in the days ahead, no matter the outcome?

What will you give up doing?

What might you undertake anew after the election?

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Comments from some participants:

  1. Gratitude for being together on an auspicious occasion
  2. Love and goodness will hold us and never let us go
  3. Evil is real and comes in forms like greed, sexism, racism, and the like
  4. Prayers for the peaceful transfer of power
  5. Writing to Kamala Harris is a wonderful idea
  6. Ponerology is the study of evil, and theodicy is the conundrum of divine goodness and the existence of evil
  7. Recognizing that fear underlies so much of division and violence
  8. Impact of U.S. elections on the world, especially the Pacific and Asia region with relation to China
  9. All life forms, not just human life, are in the balance; tribute to recently deceased Canadian indigenous leader Murray Sinclair who said “to walk with a purposeful stride”
  10. The power of words— A Chinese proverb: “The birds of worry and care fly above your head. This you cannot change. But that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent.”

Closing comment from Rosemary—Many gems were contributed. We believe in the human project, we believe in each other, and we believe in renewal.

Thanks to Rosemary Ganley and all who participated. Please use the questions in this liminal time after the U.S. elections and the aftermath. The goodness of this work will endure.